A GARDEN DIARY 165 



admire such sedate damsels. Give me a little 

 more spontaneity ; a little more youthful impetu- 

 osity and dash 



" Robes loosely flowing, hair as free ; 

 Such sweet neglect more taketh me." 



To drop metaphor, which has a tendency 

 to drop itself, we are in despair over this 

 dryness, and as a consequence have had to 

 resort already to the aid of our watering-pots. 

 Now in April the watering - pot ought in my 

 opinion to be still reposing in its tool shed, with 

 the early spider weaving his first web across its 

 spout. So strongly is this impressed upon my 

 mind that I feel as if there were something illicit, 

 something I might almost go so far as to call 

 unprincipled, in resorting to its assistance thus 

 prematurely. After all though, a gardener's first 

 virtue, I reflect, is to save his plants, and unless 

 we promptly take some step of the kind, ours for 

 a surety will for the most part die. 



